It seems hard to remember now, when security threats seem to originate from the maelstrom in the Middle East, that it wasn’t long ago we seemed to have daily reports of atrocities which came much closer to home.

During the 1970s and ’80s, barely a day went by without reports of violence in Belfast, or Londonderry, or Armagh.The Falls Road, the Shankill Road, and the Bogside were places as familiar as Coronation Street or Albert Square.

Since the mid-1990s, however, the Troubles seem to have largely faded from memory, although The Funeral Murders (BBC2, Monday, 9pm) brought them sharply back into focus to us all.

The documentary looked at a few weeks in 1988, when tensions between the Republicans and Loyalists came close to combustion.

After three IRA members were shot dead on Gibraltar by the SAS, their bodies were brought home and at the funeral –attended by huge numbers – a Loyalist paramilitary called Michael Stone attacked the mourners with grenades, killing three.

A few days later, at the funeral of one of those victims, two off-duty soldiers who blundered into the area were pulled from their car and murdered.